Except...he needed to ask.
‘Why did you give up medicine?’ he asked into the stillness, and the night grew even more still.
‘You know,’ she said at last, ‘that when the world gets crazy, when there are things around that are battering down in every direction, a tortoise retreats into his shell and stays there. I guess...that’s what I’ve done.’
‘Your shell being this island.’
‘That’s the one.’
‘But medicine?’
‘While James was dying... We tried everything and I mean everything. Every specialist, every treatment, every last scientific breakthrough. None of it helped.’
‘You blame medicine?’
‘No,’ she said wearily. ‘But I thought... My dad pushed and pushed me to do medicine and James pushed me to specialise, and when both of them were in trouble...Dad and then James...they both turned. They were so angry and there was nothing I could do. I used to go to bed at night and lie there and dream of being... I don’t know...a filler-up of potholes. A gardener. A wine-maker. Something that made it not my fault.’
‘It wasn’t your fault your dad and James died.’
‘No,’ she said bleakly. ‘But you try telling them that.’
‘They’re dead, Ginny.’
‘Yes, but they’re still on my shoulder. A daughter and a wife who didn’t come up to standard.’
‘That’s nuts,’ he said, and put a hand on her shoulder. He felt her stiffen.
‘No,’ she said.
‘So you’ve rejected medicine because of them. You’re rejecting friendship, too?’
There was a long silence while they both sat and stared out over the moonlit sea. He kept his hand where it was, gently on her shoulder, and he felt her make a huge—vast—effort to relax.
What had those guys done to her—her father and her husband? He thought back to the laughing, carefree girl who’d been his friend and he felt...
Yeah, well, there was no use going down that road. He couldn’t slug dead people.
He wanted to pull her closer. It took an almost superhuman effort to keep it light, hold the illusion that this was friendship, nothing more.
‘I’ll come out eventually,’ Ginny said at last. ‘I can’t stay in my shell for ever and Button will haul me out faster.’
‘You’ll go back to the mainland?’
‘No!’ It was a fierce exclamation.
‘This island’s not for hiding, Ginny,’ he said softly. ‘Life happens here as well.’
‘Yes, but I can take Button tadpoling here.’
‘She’ll love it.’ He hesitated but the urge was too great. ‘Let me in a little,’ he said. ‘We used to be friends. I’m the second-best tadpoler on the island. We could...share.’
She stiffened again. ‘Ben, I don’t... I can’t...’
‘Share?’
‘That’s the one.’ She rose, brushing away his touch. Her face was pale in the moonlight and he wondered again what those guys had done to her. Unbidden he felt his hands clench into fists. His beautiful Ginny...
‘It’s okay,’ he made himself say, forcing the anger from his voice. ‘Treat the island as a shell, then. You have Button in there with you, though, and I have a feeling she’ll tug you out. And you came out tonight. Henry’s alive because you came out, and you can’t imagine how grateful I am.’
‘It’s me who should be grateful,’ she said. ‘Henry was my friend.’
‘Henry is your friend.’ And then, as she didn’t reply, he pushed a little bit further.
‘Ginny, no one on this island judged you because of who your parents were. You stayed here for ten summers and there are lots of islanders who’d call you their friend. My family almost considered you one of us. We’re all still here, Ginny, waiting for you to emerge and be our friend again.’
‘I can’t.’
‘No,’ he said, and because he couldn’t stop himself he touched her cheek, a feather touch, because the need to touch her was irresistible and she was so beautiful and fearful and needful.
So Ginny.
‘You can’t,’ he said. ‘But tonight you did.’ And then, before he knew what he was going to do, before she could possibly know for he hadn’t even realised he was about to do it himself, he stooped and kissed her, lightly, on the lips.
It had been a feather touch. He’d backed away before she’d even realised he’d done it, appalled with himself, putting space between them, moving away before she could react with the fear he knew was in her.
But he had to say it.
‘We’re all here, waiting,’ he said into the darkness. ‘We’ll wait for as long as it takes. This island is as old as time itself and it has all the patience in the world.’
And as if on cue the world trembled.
It was the faintest of earth tremors, exactly the same as the tremors that had shaken this island since time immemorial.
A tiny grumble of discord from within.
Nothing to worry about? Surely not.
‘Or maybe it’s saying hurry up,’ Ben said, and grinned, and Ginny managed a shaky smile.
‘It’ll have to wait.’
‘Maybe the island’s giving you a nudge. Like we gave you a nudge. You saved Henry tonight, Ginny, so there’s a start. No pressure, love, but when you come out of your shell, we’re all waiting.’
No pressure.
He watched as she put her fingers to the lips he’d just kissed. He watched as she watched him, as something fought within her.
What had her father and husband done to her?
‘I...I need to go,’ she faltered, and he didn’t move towards her and God only knew the effort it cost him not to.
‘Yes, you do.’
‘Ben...’
‘Don’t say anything more,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve done brilliantly tonight. I love what you’re doing with Button—we all do. One step at a time, our Ginny, that’s all we ask.’
He tugged open the door of her car and watched as she climbed in.
He didn’t touch her and it almost killed him.
‘Goodnight, Ginny,’ he said softly, and she didn’t say a thing in reply.
He stood back as she did up her seat belt, as she started the engine, as she drove away, and he thought...
She looks haunted.
Not by him, he thought. She needed time.
He would give her time. Except for emergencies. Even knowing she was on the island, another doctor...
Who was he kidding? Even knowing she was on the island...his Ginny.
He would give her time. He had to.
* * *
She reached the vineyard. The lights were on inside the house. Ailsa and Hannah would be there, keeping watch over Button, waiting for her, anxious about Henry.
This island was like a cocoon, she thought, a warm, safe blanket that enveloped her and kept her safe from the real world.
Did she ever need to go back to the real world?
Kaimotu was time out, a holiday isle, a place of escape.
She could make it real.
But if she did, would the world move in?
She thought back to her marriage. The fairy-tale. A big, gorgeous, clever man her parents had approved of, dating her, making love to her, making her feel like the princess in a fairy-tale. She could have her parents’ life. She could have a happy-ever-after.
Yes, she’d had a childhood romance with Ben but that had been years before. She’d felt that what she’d found with James had been real, wonderful, a grown-up happy-ever-after.
And she’d stepped into James’s world and realised that grown up wasn’t fantasy. Not one little bit. Grown up was trying to meet expectations, climbing the career ladder, accepting scorn
when you failed.
Grown up was realising that medicine couldn’t save lives—that you could do nothing to help your father or your husband.
Grown up was learning to hate yourself as well as copping hate from those around you.
‘I need a shrink,’ she said out loud, and then closed her eyes, took a deep breath, stared up at the starlit sky and figured she didn’t need a psychiatrist. She needed to move on. Move forward.
But not very much, and certainly not in the direction of Ben.
Ben had kissed her.
Ben was real.
No. He’d be just the same as all the other fantasies, she told herself. She no longer trusted her judgement. She no longer trusted men who told her she was capable, beautiful, wonderful.
She no longer trusted.
‘My job is to take care of Button and to make wine,’ she told herself, and thought that actually she hadn’t managed very well in the picking and processing department and there wouldn’t be all that much Chardonnay coming out of the vineyard this season.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Button’s the important thing.’ Like Henry was important. She’d helped save Henry.
Yes, but for how long? He’d have another coronary, he’d arrest, he’d die and she’d feel...she’d feel...
‘I’m not going to feel,’ she said savagely into the dark. ‘If Ben’s desperate I’ll help but nothing else. I will not be responsible for anything else but Button. It won’t be my fault.’
‘That’s a cop-out and you know it,’ she told herself, and she bit her lip and turned resolutely towards the house.
‘I know it is,’ she told herself. ‘But it’s all I’m capable of. And if Ben McMahon thinks he can change my mind just by kissing me... Pigs might fly, Ben McMahon, but you are not stuffing with my life.’
* * *
Sleep was nowhere. Ben lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling and all he could think about was that kiss.
He’d wanted her when he’d been seventeen, and he wanted her still. Crazy or not, his body was reacting to her as it had at seventeen.
He wanted her.
But while he wanted her as a woman, as the desire he’d felt all those years ago surged back to the surface, he needed her as a doctor. The skill she’d shown had knocked him sideways. He had to persuade her to join him; with her skills the island could have the medical service it deserved.
All sorts of possibilities had opened up as he’d watched her work. Islanders with cancer pain often needed to be transported to the mainland, at a time when they most wanted to stay here. He didn’t have the skills to help them.
As an anaesthetist, Ginny had those skills.
So...was he messing with that need by making it personal? By letting his desire hold sway? He’d kissed her and she’d shied away like a frightened colt.
‘So don’t kiss her,’ he said out loud, knowing that was easier said than done.
She’d been injured by the men in her life, he thought. She’d been injured by the arrogant bully he remembered her father being, and a husband who sounded like a bottom feeder. Ben wasn’t seeing her as a victim, though. With her determination to keep Button, with the skill and humour she’d shown in Theatre tonight, he knew that underneath the battered armour there was still the lovely, feisty, carrot-haired girl he’d fallen in love with all those years ago.
‘It was an adolescent crush,’ he growled to the night. ‘Get over it.’
But an adolescent crush wasn’t what he was feeling. When his mouth had touched hers, a fire had reignited.
For her, too?
If it had, she wasn’t letting on. Her armour might be battered but it was still intact, and if he wanted any chance at all of persuading her to work with him, he needed to respect it.
‘So leave her be.’
‘Except to ask her to work?’ He was arguing out loud with himself.
‘Yes,’ he told himself. ‘She worked that first afternoon because she saw desperate need. She worked tonight for the same reason. At the moment she’s giving you back-up when you most need it. Respect that, give her space, give her time.’
‘But the way you feel?’
‘Get over it,’ he said harshly. ‘You’re not seventeen any more. Go find yourself a lady who wants you.’
‘And isn’t that the whole trouble?’ he groaned, and punched a pillow. This island was small, and any affair he had, even asking someone on a date, led to expectations and complications.
Like tonight. One kiss...
Expectations and complications?
‘Leave it alone,’ he growled, and punched the pillow once more then gave up and got up and went across to the hospital to check on Henry—who was sleeping soundly and didn’t need his attention at all.
He went back to bed and finally he slept, but when he slept he dreamed of Ginny.
She was an adolescent crush who’d turned into the woman of his dreams. The idea was romantic nonsense, he told himself, even in his sleep.
* * *
And down on the harbour... It was five in the morning and almost every islander was asleep, but Squid Davies was wide awake and pacing.
‘It’s coming,’ he muttered. ‘The big one’s coming. I feel it in my bones.’ He grabbed a piece of paper and started to write.
‘Just in case,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll be prepared even if they’re not.’
CHAPTER FIVE
BEN DIDN’T SEE Ginny for days.
Henry spent four days in hospital in Auckland and then was transferred back to the island. Ben heard from his mum that Ginny had tried to persuade the old man to come back to the vineyard and stay with her, but Henry wanted to go back to his ancient cottage on the headland. It was too far from anywhere, he thought. He wouldn’t mind talking to Ginny about it.
‘But Ginny’s doing all she can,’ Ailsa told him. ‘She’s visiting him twice a day. There’s nothing more she can do. There’s nothing more anyone can do.’
So he didn’t have an exc—a reason to talk to her. But finally Button’s cardiac results came through.
There’d been a query on Button’s medical records, tests taken but not recorded. Her family doctor had noted that slight heart murmur, he’d sent her to a specialist but then she’d been brought to the island and the notes she’d brought hadn’t contained results.
It had taken a week’s perseverance on Ben’s part to get them. Laws protecting a patient’s privacy were a concern, especially when the patient was four years old, one parent had disappeared to Europe and the other wanted nothing to do with her. Ben had run out of professional ways of getting the results and had finally reverted to the personal. He’d rung Veronica’s husband, a man who blustered about not wanting anything to do with a child who wasn’t his but at least didn’t hang up on him.
‘For now you’re still legally Barbara’s parent,’ Ben had snapped at him. ‘I’m now her doctor, Ginny’s her acting guardian until the legalities are completed and we need full access to her medical records. Do you want her to die of heart failure because of your pride?’
The man had finally complied, and when Ben eventually received the results he swore.
There were problems. They’d have to be sorted. He and Ginny had to talk.
It was Monday, a gorgeous autumn day. Ben did a long morning’s clinic then he needed to make some house calls, and Ginny’s house was first.
He’d just reached the vineyard gate when the earth moved.
* * *
One moment Ginny was supervising Button eating her boiled egg and toast. The next moment she was on the floor and the world was crazy.
It was as if the whole house had been picked up and was being violently shaken. Walls became floor, floor became walls. Furniture was crashing everywhere.
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She grabbed a chair but the chair slid sideways, crashed, rolled, tumbled.
Button!
She was screaming. Was Button screaming? The noise was unbelievable.
Somehow she grabbed the little girl as the chair she’d been sitting on crashed almost on top of her. She scooped her into her arms, and then the floor seemed to roll again.
The table. The table!
Drop and hold. Where had she heard that? In some long-ago safety lecture, maybe here in New Zealand when she’d been a child? New Zealand was known as the shaky isles for good reason.
There was another mantra. Get out of the house. Into the open.
But it was no use thinking that now, or trying to attempt it. This was like a wild, bucking, funfair ride, only there was nothing fun about this. Everything that wasn’t nailed down was crashing around them.
She had Button cradled hard against her but she was struggling to hold her. She was fighting to stay on her knees.
The table... If she could get past these crazy chairs...
The table was big, solid, farmhouse wood. If she could get under...
Getting anywhere was impossible. Something sharp hit her head, and she thought, Drop further.
She dropped onto her side, ignoring the crunch of things breaking under her. Button was clinging to her, limpet-like, whimpering in terror, and Ginny could move where she wanted and she knew Button wouldn’t let go.
Move where she wanted? That was a joke.
The table. She was three feet away. Roll. Roll!
The floor lurched again, tipping the other way, and under she went. She crashed into chair legs as she rolled but Button was with her, clinging so hard that Ginny had a hand free.
Grab.
She grabbed a table leg and clung.
She was under the table. The world was still rolling in great, fearsome waves, but the table and the floor beneath it were rolling with it and Ginny could hold and ride.
Thank God the house was single-storey, Ginny thought as she clung. And had an iron roof. No vast bank of heavy tiles.
MIRACLE ON KAIMOTU ISLAND/ALWAYS THE HERO Page 7
